\u201cWhen I teach museum studies, I use Elizabeth\u2019s collection as an example of a modern cabinet of curiosities,\u201d says Christopher B. Steiner, art history and anthropology professor at Connecticut College. \u201cIn the Renaissance there were these cabinets of curiosities<\/a> in which people would collect odd things that nobody had ever seen \u2013 a new species from the New World or from Africa, rare shells, and that kind of thing. I see Elizabeth\u2019s collection as being part of that vein.\u201d<\/p>\n The Benton\u2019s exhibit, which Steiner curated, wouldn\u2019t fit into a modern-day cabinet, though, as it features four dozen of Tashjian\u2019s major paintings, a recreation of the Nut Museum\u2019s main exhibition space from her home, sculptures, a case of homemade masks, and an assortment of other treasures from the trove recovered from her home in 2002. Her prized 35-pound coco de mer, from a palm tree on one of the islands of Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, is placed where it always was kept \u2013 on a Chinese mahogany chair in Tashjian\u2019s recreated dining room.<\/p>\n She operated the Nut Museum<\/a> for 30 years, welcoming young and old into the first few rooms of the home she inherited from her mother as an only child. She\u2019d give visitors narrated tours, complete with made-up songs<\/a>, Steiner says, in a form of performance art. Gaining the attention of Johnny Carson, she twice visited \u201cThe Tonight Show,\u201d<\/a> later appearing on TV and radio with Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Howie Mandel. The cost for entrance to her museum was one nut.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is this tradition in American museums of these quirky, eccentric, off-beat museums, and there\u2019s a following out there of people who want to go to these places,\u201d Steiner says. \u201cA lot of times they\u2019re also linked to roadside attractions. People drive across the country and stop at the Biggest Ball of Twine<\/a>, the biggest pencil in the world<\/a>. I don\u2019t think that would have been Elizabeth\u2019s choice; I think she thought of herself as an artist, having trained in her youth at the National Academy of Design in New York City. But she ended up being lumped into these tour books of weird roadside attractions and that\u2019s where a lot of her audience came from.\u201d<\/p>\n At 90 years old, she was found in a coma in her home and wasn\u2019t expected to survive. Without heirs and in debt, the home was bound for town acquisition and its contents to be sold when Steiner petitioned for the art and contents of the museum, he says. Their ownership was granted to Connecticut College, where Steiner has used it for teaching and brought it out for exhibit in 2003, 2004, 2019 \u2013 and now for its anniversary.<\/p>\n \u201cThese off-beat museums tend to be run by one person, and when that one person dies or when circumstances put an end to the museum, a lot of times they disappear,\u201d he adds. \u201cThey\u2019re very ephemeral and this was just a great opportunity to save it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tashjian woke up after three weeks in a coma and spent her remaining years in a nursing facility in Old Saybrook. That\u2019s when Benton Executive Director Nancy Stula met her.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was a character,\u201d Stula says. \u201cI didn\u2019t get to know her as well as Chris did, but I can appreciate what she was doing with her collection. Her cabinet of curiosities is worthy of display and study through the lens of passion, obsession, and collecting, along with issues confronting the elderly. In bringing it to the Benton Museum of Art, I thought it would be interesting to explore these points through the exhibition. As Connecticut\u2019s state art museum and UConn\u2019s art museum, we have a broad audience to serve.\u201d<\/p>\n Steiner is writing a book, \u201cPerforming the Nut Museum,\u201d and says he hopes another venue could take over as caretaker of the collection. \u201cIn an ideal world, it should go to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, because she is part of American museum history.\u201d<\/p>\n The William Benton Museum of Art will hold a series of events around \u201cRemembering the Nut Museum,\u201d including a gallery talk by Steiner on Feb. 17 and a screening of the Don Bernier film \u201cIn a Nutshell: A Portrait of Elizabeth Tashjian\u201d on March 1. An interactive workshop on Collecting in Practice will be held March 8. All the events will be held via Zoom.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Nuts_220203a037-300x200.jpg\")
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